One final list. Just to give you a sense of what traveling with M2 has been like, here are the highlights from our beverage selections over the last week. Because when you’re eating fried ants and raw coelacanth, you’ve got to have something to wash it all down with.

After 30 days of traveling with M2’s advanced tech, we’ve covered a lot of ground, seen a lot of interesting worlds, and gotten into more trouble than I had expected. Here’s a list of people who hate us now.

1. President Bush, III
2. The Gates Foundation
3. A velociraptor M2 jokingly referred to as “Sweetheart”
4. The staff of the London Zoo
5. A clerk named Lurleen at a 7-11 in Beaumont, Texas
6. The coordinators of the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
7. Girl Scout Troop 11487

Oh yeah, and those same guys that were trying to abduct M2 the day I met her. So, you know. That’s great.

M2 pops the cork on another bottle of wine, and says, “How would you like to see the really weird stuff?”

“How weird?”

“You aren’t limited by your tech anymore. We can travel a lot further ‘in a single bound’, so to speak.”

“So what can we see?”

“Think worlds in the style of Marvel’s old ‘What If?’ line? An America where the Cold War never ended, a timeline where people live side-by-side with dinosaurs on the Great Plains, a world where everyone has psychic abilities.”

“But don’t we have enough problems in these familiar timelines?,” I asked her.

We’re sitting by a fire in a posh hotel suite that’s way beyond our means. It’s glorious, after last week.

M2, as I’ve affectionally begun to think of Margery the Formerly Bound, is waxing poetic about her shiny new tech. I’d be jealous, except for that fact that we’ve decided to travel together for a while…so I get to play with all her toys.

Her gear is incredibly precise, and has outstanding range. I’ve been limited to a small selection of worlds. But she knows how to reach places I’ve only dreamed about. The next 6 weeks are gonna be amazing.

Brian Greene argues that it’s theoretically possible for scientists using advanced math to predict how particles move. With comprehensive equations, we could predict those particle movements to the extent that we could map a parallel universe extensively…even if it isn’t a place we could ever visit.

Can you imagine? You could be a cartographer without ever leaving your desk, and your maps would reveal every possible movement of every particle in that universe. And my newest acquaintance says she’s got the tech to pull off all those calculations.

Breaking bread with her is like breathing out and breathing in again. It’s autonomic, effortless, calm.

I never have to say “pass the salt” or “may I have the butter”. She already knows how I take my tea, how I like to over-salt my steaks. And likewise, I know that she hates orange juice, and will always refuse to take the last cookie (no matter how much she’d like to eat it).

Mealtimes are silent, but perfectly coordinated. The dinner table is a dance hall, and we know all the steps.

A moment’s pause here, I think, to explain a bit about how a Margery travels. Because, of course, we don’t all do it in the same way.

Every Margery has some natural talent for traveling. I’m not sure if it’s something in our blood or what, but it explains why we are drawn like magnets to universes where a Margery lives, and shot away from universes where there are no Margeries to be found.

Some other Margeries have developed tech to augment these natural gifts, giving them better control, or further reach.